In 1953, Hiller Helicopters developed the Rotorcycle to meet a U. S. Marine Corps requirement for a single-person collapsible helicopter that could support special operations missions or be air-dropped to pilots trapped behind enemy lines. Hiller built the prototype, and the British firm, Saunders-Roe built ten production models, including the five YROE-1s requested by the Marine Corps, including this one. The first flight of a Rotorcycle occurred in 1956.

The Rotorcycle was so stable a non-pilot could fly it after only eight hours of instruction. However, The Marine Corps did not accept the YROE-1 for military service because of its slow speed of 84 kph (52 mph), its minimal range of 64 km (40 miles), its vulnerability to small-arms fire and the lack of visual references on the structure, which could cause the pilot to experience spatial disorientation at all but very low altitudes.

When Igor Sikorsky began to publicly demonstrate his VS-300 helicopter in 1941, he called it the automobile of the future. This idea quickly captured the public imagination and enthusiastic helicopter designers stepped forward to produce the next aerial version of the Model T. On April 11, 1943, Frank Piasecki became the second American to successfully fly a helicopter of his own design, the Piasecki-Venzie PV-2. He built it with far fewer resources than Sikorsky had available to construct the VS-300, yet the PV-2 flew with an unprecedented smoothness and stability. Ironically, Frank Piasecki intended his first helicopter design to be the forerunner of a revolution in personal transportation, but his company actually evolved into one of the foremost manufacturers of large cargo helicopters sold primarily to the military.

In the mid-1950s, Hiller constructed a series of innovative Flying Platforms for an Army-Navy program as a one-man flying vehicle that the pilot could control with minimal training. The pilot simply leaned in the desired direction and the platform would follow. The platforms, which utilized the aerodynamic advantages of the ducted fan, were incapable of tumbling, because if the pilot leaned over too far, the platform would pitch up and slow down.

The 1031-A-1 is the second of the Flying Platform prototypes and was the first to operate out of ground effect (aerodynamic cushion caused by thrust hitting the ground). The Army contracted for a larger, improved model – the VZ-1 – but the extra engines required for redundancy if the primary failed made the platform so heavy that it was impossible for the pilot to control the craft kinesthetically (by leaning), defeating the purpose of the design.

Transferred from the United States Department of the Army and the United States Department of the Navy.

In 1944, at the age of 19, Stanley Hiller, Jr. designed, built, and test flew the first helicopter with coaxial rotors to fly successfully in the United States. The XH-44 was also the first helicopter to fly successfully with all-metal blades and a rigid rotor. Hiller used the counter-rotating coaxial configuration to distinguish his designs from Sikorsky’s single main rotor designs that dominated the helicopter industry in the mid-1940s.

The first tie-down tests of the XH-44 took place on his parents’ driveway and the initial flight tests occurred at the University of California at Berkeley’s football stadium, where Hiller was a student. He initially tested the XH-44 with amphibious floats in his family’s swimming pool. Up-scaled coaxial Hiller designs failed to sell, but his company prospered with the introduction of the popular UH-12 single rotor model.